


S Rh-

by GrilledBeer



Category: One Piece
Genre: Blood, Gap Filler, Gen, Mild Language, Nakamaship, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrilledBeer/pseuds/GrilledBeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting and blood loss was a fact of life, but when things got out of hand Sanji became self-conscious about troubling Chopper and others: S Rh- was not easy to come by, after all. Desperate situations called for desperate measures.</p>
<p>One-shot, namakaship, blood. Set after Thriller Bark and before Duval, pre-timeskip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	S Rh-

“Your servant knight of love has come to save you from shitty villains, my princess!!!”

Sanji stylishly dusted himself off after kicking the thugs’ asses. He held out his hand to the beautiful lady with moist, pretty eyes, but she promptly got up on her own so his hand grazed one of her breasts. She let out a pitched scream (a very charming sound, in his opinion), smashed him in the head with the porcelain water pewter in her hands and ran away. It broke; so did his head. He let out an unknightly ‘Ack!’ and must have more or less passed out on the ground, still happily chanting ‘Mellorine, Mellorine!’ and reliving the feel of the soft, gorgeous lump.

They had docked at this small and prehistoric island the day before. The size of the central market was telling enough: there were no more than four stands and he had to go through some trouble to procure necessary food supply for the ship. He was enjoying the last afternoon in town before they left for the high seas next morning when he came across this lovely little damsel distressed by a group of bandits in a back alleyway.

A local found him lying in the pool of blood from the wound on his head (she must have been pretty shy! oh, how he loved shy ladies!) a few hours afterward. The witness, according to Chopper, claimed that he still had hearts in his eyes and slurring something about a sweet spongey marshmallow, oblivious to the world. Out of goodwill, the local took him to the only doctor in town — an old man hard of hearing who mistook his love elegy for a cry of pain, his groping the body pillow on the doctor’s bed a sign of suffering. Noticing that his foreign patient had lost a good amount of blood — for head wounds typically bled profusely and this one had been left untended for a good while — and was likely in a lot of pain, the doctor decided to attempt blood transfusion after stitching up the cut. That was when disaster befell Sanji.

Unequipped and untried as doctors in prehistoric towns went, this old man did not have the right blood nor the right knowledge. He assumed that any blood would be better than no blood at all, so he went ahead and gave his patient the only blood bag he had in stock without first testing for compatibility.

It was then that Sanji jerked awake and felt that something was really, really wrong.

Luckily though almost belatedly, Chopper and Usopp who had set out to look for him due to Luffy’s vehement demand for dinner, eventually managed to track him down at the doctor’s place. They helped him back to the ship, but he was already shivering and aching and passed out for the second time before they reached their destination. He was still out cold when they set sail the following morning.

As Chopper explained to him later: what happened was an incompatibility reaction that had been triggered by mismatched blood transfusion. The side effects from his immune system fighting off foreign blood cells were fever and nausea — and of course pain; plenty of it.

It was stupid, really. But provided that he had an extremely rare blood type, S Rh-, technically every untested blood transfusion warranted this reaction. Aware that fighting and blood loss were a fact of life, Chopper had taken countermeasures for him and the rest of the crew by regularly taking blood from them and set it aside as an emergency supply. The young doctor typically stocked up blood from towns whenever they docked as well, but S- was not always easy to come by. Chopper’s best advice (and warning) for him was to try not to lose blood. That Sanji did: he always walked out of battles looking more or less neat (for elegance’s and Chopper’s sake), compared with his fellow shipmates. It wouldn’t do to give extra troubles to the young doctor, when he already had a handful of Luffy and the shitty swordsman to worry about.

He woke up again three days after and felt so damn weak …physically and otherwise.

 

Chopper’s special lecture was the second thing he received after he woke up (the first being Luffy’s, about his never collapsing and leaving the kitchen to the girls again):

“How many time do I have to tell you that if you can’t avoid getting hurt, at least get bruises or broken bones instead of bleeding! What if Usopp and me hadn’t got there in time? You could have been in serious trouble, idiot! You should have known better than to get treated by a doctor you don’t know, now look what it’s done to you. I’ve used your last blood bag and won’t be getting more from you in a while, so unless I can stock up on S- from the next island, you’re doomed. Now is the time to prove that you know what it is to be careful or I’m gonna kill you, do I make myself clear!?”

Chopper was furious, which was unsurprising. Sanji apologized flatly, “I know, sorry.” And on a second thought, he added, “Thank you, doctor.”

“Thanking me doesn’t make me happy for a bit, you moron!” And true to his words, the reindeer was wriggling and blushing with glaring non-happiness. That afternoon, Sanji handed him a stick of his special seven-layered, rainbow-colored cotton candy decorated with pieces of fruit in silence, and the doctor basically squealed.

Sanji felt bad — guilty even. He didn’t really blame the old doctor for trying to help. He just felt like he had unnecessarily caused trouble for others, which was exactly the last thing he wanted: he was not like the other idiots who always wreaked havoc and made his lovely Nami and Robin worried. And the worst thing was that there was nothing he could do about it. He just wished there was. He was up to fighting; he was ready to kick asses. Losing blood in a fight was one thing, but getting fatally sick from incompatibility reaction and being out cold for three days was an entirely different story.

He’d never had trouble with blood loss before — not that he’d ever been hospitalized back at the Baratie, though. In fact, he’d just discovered that he had an unusual blood type when Chopper examined them for the first time after he had joined the crew.

A week had passed and Sanji was recovered, so he assumed everything would go back to normal. Incidentally, he soon realized that that was not the case. His nose gushed as soon as he laid eyes on Nami and Robin in their new sun-bathing bikinis, which were the most revealing he’d ever seen (and looked best on his goddesses too, he must add). His lovely Nami-swan smacked him hard — harder than usual, that was — for his nosebleed, and said she’d charge him a bucket of belis if he lost more blood. Brook went into panic when he accidentally scraped his arm, superficial as it apparently was, while they were helping Franky move barrels below-deck. He woke up in the middle of one night when everyone’d already gone to sleep to find Chopper hovering over him, making sure his blood pressure was alright (Sanji wouldn’t for the life of him let him do it as long as he was awake) — just a routine check-up, claimed the reindeer unconvincingly. Everyone was overreacting, it was shittily annoying and that sense of self-consciousness never had a chance to fade away. His manner did not betray anything, though.

But not with Zoro. One evening after dinner when everyone was just relaxing before going to bed, they fought. Just like the rest of their fights, Sanji had already forgotten what it was about, and the next thing he knew they were shouting and grabbing at each other. Zoro set the wine bottle he’d been holding aside and reached for one of his swords, then stopped as if he’d remembered something. He smirked and spat.

“I don’t need a katana to put down idiots that get their asses handed to them simply because they’ve spilled a few drops of juice.”

That positively stung. Sanji was so angry he saw red.

“You shitty bastard!!!” And he threw a swift, sharp kick at Zoro, which the muscle head blocked with his arms just in time to prevent damage.

“Oi, you’re being touchy. The hell’s wrong with you!” Then before Sanji knew it, words slipped past his gritted teeth: they sounded almost like a snarl.

“Don’t get cocky just because you were still standing after you almost _bled dry_ among those rubbles, dickhead!”

With that he leaped at Zoro, but things escalated quickly. Zoro grabbed his ankle and threw him to the ground, not making any attempt to make it not hurt like both of them always did. The shitty moss head kicked him in the flank as if to rub it in as to who was standing and who was down. Kicking was Sanji’s thing, but the swordsman sure knew what he was doing. Sanji couldn’t stifle a groan.

“Oi, what on earth are you guys doing? Don’t go and destroy my ship!”

“Zoro! Did you forget that I forbade you to fight him while he’s still recovering!?”

“You’re white as a sheet, Sanji! Are you alright?”

Their crew mates were attracted by the commotion and gathered around them. Sanji was panting and rudely slapped Usopp’s hands away. Luffy picked his nose nonchalantly and made a simple remark.

“What was that you were saying? Zoro almost bled to death? When? At dinner?”

Now every pair of curious eyes turned to Sanji. Zoro, in turn, fixed a dark glare at him from above. If looks could kill Sanji would have been dead three times over. Normally he was not one to bail out of a fight, especially one as inviting as this, but upon realizing what he’d just said, he bit his lips to keep his mouth firmly shut. It was Zoro who answered.

“Shitty cook was referring to the time when I fought Mihawk. He’s just jealous ’cause he can’t handle his own stupid ass.”

Sanji was bristling. It took everything he had in order not to charge at Zoro. The shitty swordsman didn’t spare him a glance before grabbing the bottle he’d left and went off to the crow’s nest.

“Aww, that’s not fun.”

“Come on, Luffy. Why would Zoro have bled to death at dinner? Wouldn’t anyone have noticed?”

“Oi, Usopp, did you see any blood?”

“Zoro didn’t bleed in the first place! Nobody did, idiot!”

A loud smack.

“Nami, you! What was that for!?”

The crew seemed disappointed. Before they dispersed, Robin cracked a small knowing smile and Brook wore an unreadable expression (not that he had any expression to begin with).

Sanji remained where he was and lit a cigarette. He felt pathetic. Everything Zoro said was spot on. The shitty swordsman was prone to losing litres of blood and still managed to recover in no time, as evidenced in past battles. That muscle head was up and about after Thriller Bark like nothing had happened — and Sanji saw with his own eyes the solid amount of blood he had lost. Remembering it only served to bring out his own misgivings.

But what tormented him most was the fact that he almost destroyed what he was determined to protect: Zoro’s dedication. Feeling angry and hurt, he almost revealed to the whole crew what happened after Kuma had showed up at Thriller Bark. ‘Nothing happened’, was what Zoro ground out when he was standing there dripping dry, but it was not this that kept Sanji silent. He didn’t give a shit about what the idiot said as a rule. It was the dedication of one first mate to his captain that Sanji valued, that he wanted to keep valid and true.

Being self-conscious about being a burden to others was a complicated feeling, so he had resorted to anger. Being angry was not complicated. But now that he, as much as he did not want to admit it, had almost ruined Zoro's and his mutual respect (if something like that ever existed) with his temper, Sanji was really out of his depth.

He spent half the night chain-smoking on deck, then went to bed.

 

In a scuffle with the ruffians on the next island over a catch (a ginormous cow that grew wings from its back, which their captain had ordered to obtain at all cost, out of the pure reason that he wanted to eat it…), everything were going pretty smoothly. Sanji dodged and parried attacks from around him, bartered kicks and sent people flying. The girls and Chopper had gone to town to buy supplies, while Franky and Usopp tagged along to help carry stuffs; he would have, too, if Luffy hadn’t led the rest of them into the hidden pasture where the villagers raised their sacred cow first.

The cow was practically theirs as soon as Luffy’d made up his mind and beaten the beast down. That was when two hundred ruffians came out and claimed the thing as theirs, saying under the guise of justification that they’d have used force to take it from the village anyway if they’d been the first one to discover the secret passageway. Sanji didn’t care. He just followed Luffy into battle. All was well and they wiped out a lot of opponents before Luffy was knocked out, and the battle took a turn for the worse. Zoro was engaged with a battle-axe swinging boar while Brook was nowhere to be seen. Sanji noticed how the leader of the gang made to stomp on their captian’s unconscious body, so he charged at the big man with a drop kick without a second thought.

They exchanged blows, and Sanji got a few good kicks in. Suddenly, the leader stopped dead and took a kick square in the chest when he could have easily avoided it. Sanji was caught off guard for a split second and one ruffian appeared behind him. Thanks to his reflexes, Sanji jumped and delivered a double kick to their faces just in time, sending both bodies flying in separate directions. Just when Sanji thought he’d bashed their skulls in and was falling back to the ground from the jump, a third man appeared and stabbed the twin knives in his hands into his torso on the front.

His scream must have been loud, not enough to wake Luffy who was still out cold, but enough to call Zoro’s attention his way. Shit. The swordsman was the last person he wanted to face right now: with two sharp objects embedded in his body, he didn’t feel like seeing three more. Sanji was on all fours heaving, leaving the whole expanse of his back defenseless for his attacker to finish the job. The man took out a third knife (just how many did he carry?), but Sanji didn’t even have the strength to move a finger due to the shock.

He felt a slight tremor in the earth and could tell that Zoro was dashing to his side, all three swords at the ready. A shout confirmed his supposition.

“Bastard! I’m the one with the swords on his ship: if anyone gets to stab him, I’m first in line!”

That was vaguely disturbing, but Sanji couldn’t see what was happening because his body felt heavy and hot and he started to have trouble breathing. He could hear slashing sounds in the background, and assumed that Zoro must be doing away with the rest of the gang. His head swam and his vision blurred, but he forced his body to stay up, though he couldn’t bring himself to move further.

Shit. Shit. He was stabbed and the knives burned. When he couldn’t resist the urge to cough, he let it out. Blood came out as well. Shit, this was bad. Amid the haze of pain, as he didn’t have the force to lift his head up, he contemplated the pool that had gathered from the droplets dripping down from his body. Wasn’t it strange that all blood looked the same, yet each was fundamentally different? This blood lacked the thin antigen coating which made it rhesus negative. Well, you couldn’t really tell just by looking. But was that good or bad? He’d assume it was good since that was what made it rare, and rare things were supposed to be good things. The All Blue was rare to find, and it was best of the best seas. This shitty blood had given him enough trouble already, so it’d better be good. It tasted and smelled a lot like the juice from shellfish too. And despite its appearance, when you really observed blood you’d find that it was actually transparent; red, but transparent. Sanji wondered why it had to be red: so it looked alarming and triggered reflexes? Wouldn’t blue or green do as well? He’d remember to ask Chopper, if the doctor wouldn’t kill him first.

It was then that he was flipped over, and barely had time to bite back another scream. A green globe of moss appeared before him and he blinked stupidly.

“Oi cook, are you with me?” The grass was talking. Sanji blinked repeatedly to get his head to function. He noticed that that head was actually sporting a darkening bruise on its prominent forehead.

“Z—Zoro?”

“At least you haven’t become more stupid.”

“Sh—Shut up.”

“ _You_ shut up, dumbass. Listen, I’m going to pull these out, so either stay with me or pass out already.”

Pull them out. Pull the knives out.

“No! No — just leave ‘em.” He began to slur and the pain increased by several degrees. The shitty swordsman looked at him with a no-nonsense expression.

“Look, if you get off on being stabbed I’ll be happy to help you anytime of the day. Now hold still and—”

“Didn’t you hear what I s-said! I said leave ‘em. If they come off, blood will— Chopper…” Sanji was becoming more and more incoherent, but Zoro seemed to understand him alright. The swordsman said flatly, one hand on one of the handles.

“These knives are poisoned and must be removed now. Or do you want to become a purple, bloated, disgusting corpse?”

“I knew that, i-idiot; I-I can feel it. But Chopper said to try not to bleed… Just l-leave them. I’ll live...”

Because at least Chopper wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble to look for more blood. He could — would endure the poison. This way nobody had to be bothered but himself. Well, bothered was an understatement as he almost passed out from the pain alone, but still… He struggled away from Zoro and tried to rise to prove his point, but the moss head grabbed his collar, interrupting his train of thoughts.

“Oi, I’m only saying this once because you’re a complete idiot. Luffy was a troublemaker, but only a little more than the rest of us. You cook, I watch out for dangers, Franky builds, Chopper heals, and so on. He’s only doing his job like you and me. You are and aren’t a trouble, no more than the rest of us. We help one another because we’re nakamas, so don’t agonize over something you couldn’t help like losing blood and concentrate on not getting your ass stabbed next time, stupid!!!”

In two sharp moves Zoro cleanly pulled the knives out. Sanji's scream was ear-splitting, and enough to wake Luffy up this time. _Idiot, who gave you the permission to—_  but he couldn’t find the strength to voice his opinion, as he almost blacked out.

“Huh, is breakfast ready?”

“Idiot, get over here and give me a hand.”

“Sanjiiiii?!”

He could still hear their conversation at the edge of his consciousness. Then he realized that he and Zoro hadn’t really talked since that fight (not that they normally talked, though) when he almost opened his mouth about Thriller Bark. They acted as if nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing had. Perhaps he’d been overthinking it all along.

“Ero-cook was stabbed by poisoned knives, but they came off now. Hold him up so I can bind his wounds.”

“Oooooh. Zoro, Sanji’s bleeding like a tap.”

“Shit!”

Sanji felt himself lifted and the pressure applied to his wounds drew a groan out of him. He could hear Brook’s iconic laugh in the distance. Their captain said behind his ear; somehow he sounded amused.

“Sanji’s so in for trouble. Chopper was crying last time when they brought him back to the ship and threatened to kill us if we hurt him. He’s not gonna hear the end of it.”

“Serves him right for being an idiot.”

“Do you think he’ll be well enough to cook the cow soon? I really want to eat it now and it’d go to waste if we have someone else do it.”

“Oi, is this really time to be thinking about food?”

“Hee hee hee. Don’t worry, Zoro. Chopper will take good care of him and he’ll be as good as new. This is a big island, after all.”

There was a pause. Sanji let himself be dragged into the inviting darkness of slumber. But not before he caught the last bit of their conversation.

“Who’s worried!?”

“Meat is best served fresh!”

**Author's Note:**

> I'll have to own up: I'm unhealthily obsessed with blood. I'm not sure I did a good job describing it in this fic though. I'm actually inspired by the situation in the Fishman Island arc (stupid as it was) where Sanji almost died of nosebleed, but I set this story before the timeskip, just after they met Brook and were heading for the Red Line (the time frame I set up was quite loose, haha, my bad.) If you've read 'Self-Destruction', you'll find that this work was exploring Sanji from quite the opposite perspective: in that story, Sanji was unaware that he was making others worried until Zoro pointed it out. In this one, Sanji was conscious of being a trouble, and it was also Zoro who pointed out that he actually wasn't, not really. I might work on more serious ZoSan stories in the future, but for now I'll just stick to nakamaship.
> 
> Last of all, I wish to thank everyone who stumbled upon this fic! It's okay if you don't finish it: I know, but I'm still grateful. I also want to thank everyone who read the last story, and especially those who decided to read this story because of it (that's unlikely, but I'll keep dreaming)! As always, good/bad comments and thoughts are wholeheartedly desired.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and One Piece belong to E. Oda & team.


End file.
